Valkyries Hit $100 Million Before WNBA Finals Even Begin

The Valkyries Hit $100 Million in Revenue Before the Finals Even Start

Feature image suggestion: a sold-out Chase Center during a Valkyries home game, or the WNBA Finals trophy

The WNBA will crown a first-time champion this year. The Golden State Valkyries and Atlanta Dream meet in the Finals beginning October 17, a matchup that Sportico notes pairs the league's most valuable franchise with its least valuable one (Sportico). For a league that spent much of its history fighting for commercial legitimacy, the business story surrounding this series may end up louder than the basketball.

A Women's Sports First

Days before the Finals tip off, Sportico reported that the Valkyries became the first women's professional sports franchise anywhere to surpass 100 million dollars in annual revenue, and that figure came from the regular season alone (Sportico, Yardbarker).

It is a steep climb from the 78 million dollars the club brought in during its debut season in 2025, which was a women's sports record at the time and ran 48 percent ahead of the second-ranked Indiana Fever (Sportico). Reporting suggests a deep Finals run could push gross revenue past 130 million dollars before the league takes its share of playoff gate receipts (Sportico).

What Is Driving the Money

The commercial engine behind those numbers is a combination of full buildings and a crowded sponsor roster. The Valkyries have sold out 47 straight games at Chase Center, which holds 18,064 people, and they carry more than 40 sponsorship partners, among them JPMorgan Chase, Rakuten, Sephora, and United Airlines (Yardbarker).

The AI company Iren also became a partner this summer as part of a record jersey patch deal signed with the Warriors, which are owned by the same group, giving the Valkyries a ready-made path into premium corporate relationships (Yardbarker). Team president Jess Smith has described the franchise's first year as a starting line rather than a finish line, a framing that helps explain why the second season outran expectations (Yardbarker).

A few details help show how unusual this rise has been:

• CNBC valued the Valkyries at 1 billion dollars in June, making them the first women's sports organization to hit that mark, while Sportico's own ranking lists them at 850 million dollars (SF Standard, Sportico).

• The Valkyries reached the Finals in only their second season, the fastest advance by an expansion team in WNBA history (Sportico).

• The Dream sit at the other end of the valuation table, ranked 13th at 280 million dollars, even though this is their fourth Finals appearance and first since 2013 (Sportico).

Why This Series Matters for Marketers

The contrast between the two finalists tells a useful story. Golden State shows what a well-capitalized, sponsor-ready expansion franchise can build when it launches inside an existing sports business operation, while Atlanta shows how much room remains for older franchises to grow their commercial footprint. Players on the winning team will each earn 60,000 dollars under the new collective bargaining agreement signed earlier this year, with the runners-up receiving 20,000 dollars apiece, a reminder that the labor deal and the business boom are developing together (Sportico).

For brands still weighing a move into women's basketball, the Valkyries' numbers answer a question that used to be hard to settle: whether a single women's team can sustain a nine-figure business. Whoever lifts the trophy, the Finals will put that case in front of a national audience.

Sources: Sportico, Yardbarker, SF Standard